The equalizer — buy yourself a 21-ton tank retriever and worry no more about pesky fender benders.

There are times when the obtuse behavior of the errant driver to your right or left just gets to be too much. Yes, that’s him, the guy who is blithely (take your pick) texting his sweetie or trying to eat breakfast or even shaving, albeit with an electric razor. You know he’s going to sidle over and scrape his Volvo against the side of your newly purchased BMW 5-series. It will come to maybe $10,000 worth of damage.

It’s parlous times like this when you need an equalizer. You could opt for down-market — a clapped-out Honda Accord or Chevy Malibu will barely feel the affront of a sideswipe, swiped as it has been for most of its life. Or you could say: today I leave the Beemer at home and bring something else to the daily commuting wars.

Given that it truly is a war out there, why not bring something a bit, well, warlike. We introduce, voila!, the M26 Pacific Armored Tank Transporter from World War II. This is the rig that saved tanks. It hauled them out of the muck when they broke down. The M26 has a 17.9-liter, 230-horsepower engine and a cab that is armor-plated. This thing is afraid of nothing.

Let’s say you’re back on that city street, dawdling along in your M26, and that Volvo is about to make an errant turn into your flank. Let him. You won’t feel it, but he will.

This lovely leviathan, according to this item on Hemmings, can be yours for only $60,000, plus an airplane ticket to France, where the M26 currently lives. Sixty grand. For that, you could buy a conservatively equipped BMW 535, or maybe even a used tank. (You could also chase around see and if you can find an M88 tank retriever, the U.S. Army’s version of a tow truck for tanks, but I digress.)

But be warned: in this age of hybrids and other fuel sippers, this 21-ton brute does about three gallons per mile (no, not three miles per gallon.) At least, the gas companies will love it.